


Ozone

by rageprufrock



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drowning in oxygen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ozone

Fuji had always remembered tennis with a sickly-sweet odor. 

The first time he'd ever picked up a racket, it had been at his sister's behest.  "Join a club, Syuuske,  _something,_ " she'd said gently.  "Don't always just sit around at home reading dusty old books."  So he had, and Fuji played tennis because he liked the color of the balls: green like grassy summers. 

The locker rooms at Sengoku Elementary school were cleaned meticulously three times a week with a substance that smelled entirely too much like cheap perfume, and the scent permeated his memory.  Every time that Fuji picked up his racket thereafter, even when he came to love tennis, fiercely and terribly, he breathed in and felt that overpowering stench of rotting flowers and bleach.

When Fuji reached Seigaku, his first day at tennis club, clutching his racket, he stood next to a severe-faced boy with curiously round glasses--and he smelled nothing but oxygen.

 ****

 *****

 

They were far too young to understand any of the more complex issues of life, the universe or anything, but Fuji understood when he liked something, and knew how to get more.  It was a principle imbued as a child to every person, and a tendency they clung to despite societal dissuasion: no one could ever bury  _that_  ghost.

Fuji liked Tezuka.

Fuji liked how Tezuka didn't talk so much, but how he said everything anyway.  Fuji liked Tezuka's voice, firm, like he already knew all the secrets of the world.

He wasn't sure how Tezuka felt about him, but he had never asked Fuji to leave him alone, nor had Tezuka frowned at Fuji any more than anybody else so Fuji made his assumptions and spent tennis practice next to him, not saying a word.

They watched regulars play good (but not exemplary, Fuji thought) games and picked up hundreds of the green, softly-furred balls at the end of the day, like gathering acres of valleys and dells into neatly ordered boxes.

 ****

 *****

 

Fuji watched with the rest of the tennis club as the first round of ranking matches were held, and Tezuka played his way through the first and second years.  He had stood in front of the Seigaku regulars, two heads taller than he was, and faced them down with grim, bland expression on his face, the fingers of his left hand tight around the racket.

Tezuka never played to more than _just enough_ to beat someone on the court.  Fuji didn't know if it was some ingrained modesty, or a type of tactical genius. 

The din around the court was reaching a monumental level, and Fuji spared a moment of annoyance for it before he schooled his features into a casual, ineffectual smile once more.  Tezuka looked no more perturbed than he'd ever looked, and Fuji trusted Tezuka.

Six games, seven, and Tezuka lost to the tennis team captain by one game.  He was sweating and breathing hard and Fuji thought he was nearly smiling.

Then, Fuji noticed, watching very carefully, that he was dizzy, lightheaded, like he'd been drowning in ozone during the entire match and he'd only breathed in once it had ended.

Where Fuji had genius, Tezuka had skill and a dangerous drive. 

Tezuka became a regular member three and a quarter weeks before Fuji.

They used the wrong kanji on Tezuka's first Seigaku jacket, so when Fuji went to retrieve his, he and Tezuka stood at the counter together and thanked the store owner when they took the blue and white packages in hand.  Fuji and Tezuka's hands brushed, just enough to feel the rough slide of calloused skin on calloused skin, and Fuji felt shy for the first time in his life.

The clerk cast a long glance at Tezuka, and said, "That jacket seems a bit big for you."

Tezuka gave him a polite nod.  "I'm planning on growing into it."

Fuji smiled.  Tezuka was pragmatic, always thinking, with a veil over him; powerfully prideful and nearly mute in his game--but never silent in his intention.

 ****

 *****

 

One day, Fuji saw Kikumaru watching Oishi from the edges of the court. 

Ryuzaki-sensei was pairing people together for doubles trials, and it was an afternoon of sustained hilarity.  Tezuka was as suited to playing doubles tennis as a hippo was to ballet and it became ever more painfully clear as he and Oishi flawlessly lost match after match. 

But the look on Kikumaru's face was familiar like an old friend, and Fuji wondered if he looked like that when he looked at Tezuka.  

Fuji didn't say a word, just walked over to Kikumaru, and began to talk.

 ****

 *****

 

The practice matches at the end of the day had Oishi and Kikumaru pitted against Seigaku's regular doubles two team.  They were holding their own ground, and Kikumaru was shining like he'd never shined when playing alone.

Fuji watched the evening blue seep into the sky, and the faded edges of yellow and red crawling into the horizon just as he heard the sound of shouting from court A.

By the time he was there, the crush of players was three thick.  But Fuji saw, in snatches with his heart in his throat, Tezuka on his knees, face contorted in an expression of pain, clutching his left arm.  Ryuzaki-sensei was shouting at the second-years to go call the nurse and then the hospital.  A second-year Fuji didn't know was holding his cheek, a look of horrified shock on his face, eyes on Tezuka, racket abandoned on the ground.

Fuji pushed through the crowd and stood next to Tezuka.  Walked with him to the nurse's office and then waited at the hospital with him until his parents came to pick him up.  Fuji carried Tezuka's books and rackets and handed them to Tezuka's mother. 

Tezuka was at tennis practice the next day, left arm in a sling and beating everybody with his right hand, anyway.

Fuji was so happy he forgot himself and said, "I'm so glad you're all right."

There was a pause, long enough to convey surprise, and then Tezuka's eyes softening, just enough to make Fuji feel off-center, as he said, "Thank you for your concern."

Tezuka always meant what he said, Fuji realized.

 ****

 *****

 

Tezuka was squinting in class toward the end of the year.

"You probably need new glasses, Tezuka," Fuji said gently. 

"These are new," Tezuka said calmly. 

Fuji reached one hand up to brush along the fringe of Tezuka's too-long bangs, wild and out of place, so unlike the rest of him--and Tezuka didn't pull away.  Just leaned back in his seat and turned back to his math homework, already finished, pages lined with neatly-written numbers.

"Then why are you squinting?" Fuji asked, smiling.

Tezuka narrowed his brown eyes.  "You sound like my mother."

 ****

 *****

 

Tezuka always played with his right hand, Fuji realized very quickly.

He kept a hot compress on his elbow at all times and missed practice frequently.  He was vice-captain and vicious but changed, slighted, suddenly half-mute.

Fuji stayed late one day, and watched, hot anger behind his eyes, as Tezuka swung the tennis racket with his left hand, wincing.

"What would your physical therapist say, I wonder, Tezuka?" Fuji asked the next day.

Tezuka's eyes flickered over the top of his world history book.  For a moment he looked surprised, and Fuji couldn't even feel triumphant, all the warmth drained away.

"He'd say that recovery was nine tenths determination," Tezuka answered at the end.

Fuji smiled and turned back to his lunch.

He walked home that night and threw tennis balls into the gully behind his house until he fell asleep in the dewy grass.

 ****

 *****

 

Sophomore year, Fuji offered to walk Eiji to the clothing store to pick up his new Seigaku regular jacket.

Eiji grinned, big and bright.  "I'm walking with Oishi," he said with a smile.  "You're welcome to come with us, Fuji!"

Fuji remembered the way that Eiji smiled at Oishi, and how they leaned into one another as they talked.  He watched them when he thought he'd be too obvious if he watched Tezuka, and saw them smiling at each other like he wished that he and Tezuka could smile at one another: utterly familiar, without any distance at all. 

Fuji smiled, much more softly.  "Ah, no.  Three's company, Eiji."

And then they heard Tezuka's voice ring throughout the tennis courts.  "Thirty laps to everybody who's slacking!" it threatened.  "This isn't recess!  The Kanto tournament is in two months!"

Tezuka, in the intervening year and a half, had shot up to a fearful 170 cm, and showed no immediate signs that he was going to stop growing anytime soon.  He was frequently found negotiating with his limbs, a frustrated expression on his face, working with arms and legs that were longer than he remembered how to operate. 

When Tezuka's voice had been cracking he had spent most of his time silent.  His shoulders had broadened and his mother had won the fight about new glasses but failed to get him a haircut.  The dark hair was still in a wild brush across his eyes. 

"Tezuka-kun!"

Fuji's head turned in the direction of the girlish voice and saw the familiar green uniform of the Seigaku females.  She had shoulder-length black hair and was waving enthusiastically with one hand, the other carrying a pink cell phone.  "Tezuka-kun," she shouted again, "you  _promised_!"

And from the court, Tezuka's voice rang out, "One hundred more swings, and practice matches.  Remember, Kanto is in two months!"

Fuji watched him disappear into the change room, and step out again in his Seigaku uniform, a dark, lean shape against the green trees and white buildings.  He fell into step next to the girl, whose high-pitched giggles were loud even with the sound of speculative whispers in the tennis court.

Fuji's hands tightened around his racket.

Three weeks later, the Seigaku student paper printed a special interview with Tezuka Kunimitsu about the tennis team written by Fujiwara Junko.  It was six hundred words long; Tezuka said forty-three.  Fuji knew because he read it during lunch and counted twice, even though he was never wrong.

 ****

 *****

 

Yuuta came and left Seigaku in a flash, and Fuji ran up the bills calling his brother.  His parents told him to stop it, that it's not going to change from pure force of will.

Fuji's parents obviously don't know Fuji's will.

"How is your brother?" Tezuka asked, changing into his tennis uniform.

Fuji smiled, vague and like a challenge.  "Coming around," he murmured.

"Unmovable objects," Tezuka replied, "and irresistible forces."

Fuji thought on that for a moment and said, "Maybe."

Tezuka waited long enough for Fuji to finish tying his shoes, and walked with him to the court, like somehow, he knew that Fuji didn't want to bother with being strong on his own.

 ****

 *****

 

Sophomore year, Fuji had no classes with anybody from the tennis club, and spent most of his time in class looking out the window at the tree just beyond the glass.  The sky changed and shadows fell across his desk.

Fuji thought about the new freshmen, about Momoshiro's inextinguishable enthusiasm, about Kaidoh's hissing.  Fuji thought about green courts and white lines, the feel of rough netting across his fingertips and the rubbery handles of tennis rackets, the smell of the locker rooms at Sengoku Elementary school. 

Fuji thought about the last bell of the day, and of the way that Tezuka seemed to generate rumor and innuendo simply by existing. 

Fuji listened to three girls talk about Tezuka's great and magical love affair with Kaida Yuki from class 2E and tried to think about valleys of tennis balls.

 ****

 *****

 

Fuji remembered the way that Ryuzaki-sensei's eyes had widened as she'd watched Tezuka walk into the courts for the first time senior year, as if really  _seeing_  him for the first time.

The girls at Seigaku started to gather around the court to watch Tezuka or blow kisses at Oishi and Kikumaru.  The new first years gathered around Momoshiro and Echizen sat under a tree, napping until Tezuka noticed and sent him off on thirty laps as punishment for lethargy. 

But there was a new awareness, like everyone was oversensitized.

Fuji said, "They're here again," and nodded at the girls around the perimeter.

Tezuka sipped his water and said, "It's their time they're wasting."

"It's  _you_  they're after, Captain."  Fuji put an extra accent on the first syllable, and it made Tezuka narrow his eyes, so Fuji did it again: "I wonder what Captain will do."

Tezuka reached out to Fuji, grabbed the water bottle out of his hand and said, "Twenty laps."

And later, after wiping the sweat from his brow, Fuji watched the boys and girls in his year pair off discreetly, listened to the girls behind him giggle about trading diaries.  They agonized over confessing to their crushes and cried over their first heartbreaks.

Fuji thought, how ridiculous, and during practice, always paired off with Tezuka.

 ****

 *****

 

"Private practice sessions?" Kawamura ventured, and Eiji snickered.

Oishi frowned and said, "It's none of our business."

Fuji went right on sipping his water, and remembered what Tezuka's hand had felt like, warm against his own as they'd reached for their Seigaku jackets, and then against his fingertips as he'd grabbed the water bottle. 

Fuji knew better than to worry about Echizen when the boy came back from wherever he and Tezuka went looking equal parts insulted and infuriated. 

"You're starting rumors, Captain," Fuji murmured in the locker rooms later that day.

Tezuka almost smirked.  "Let them talk."

Fuji smiled, very nearly real, and watched golden light fall along Tezuka's bare shoulder.

 ****

 *****

 

Three months in Kyushuu, and Fuji decided that he hated Tezuka, just on principle.

And that he hated Atobe even more, for pushing Tezuka there.

He watched Oishi and Eiji dance around one another during fights and draw closer on the good days, but he watched everyone drift and rearrange.  He watched Echizen closely, and drew him closer, too.  Not just because Tezuka would have wanted Fuji to do it, but because it was nice to be close to somebody.

Fuji watched Momoshiro narrow his eyes and wanted to assure him that there was nothing there, that Fuji was just filling an empty space until Tezuka came back where he inevitably belonged. 

"Have you spoken to Tezuka lately?" Oishi asked him.

Fuji blinked, nearly in surprise.  "Me?  Doesn't he always call you, Vice-Captain?"

Oishi smirked and glanced across the courts.  "He calls me to call the team," Oishi said, and turned back to Fuji.  "He calls you to call  _you_."

"Don't be silly," Fuji said and resumed study of the fence.

 ****

 *****

 

Fuji let his sister draw his cards, read his stars, and guess at his future.

Tezuka called three times, and each time, his sister drew the Lovers out of her deck.

She smiled and said, "What are you hiding, Syuuske?"

Fuji ran his hand along the edge of the card, a woman and man wound around each other, scandalously close and imagined a variation of darker and lighter hair, the glint of light off of glass. 

He said, "Nothing.  I'm not hiding anything at all."

Fuji thought it was clear as day, heady as ozone.

 ****

 *****

 

High school entrance exams, and the wear was starting to show. 

Kawamura locked away his tennis racket in desperate fear that someone would be stupid enough to give it to him while he was supposed to be learning.  Oishi canceled practices and spent the time locked in libraries and cram sessions.  Eiji cried and bought toothpaste--lots of it.

Fuji checked out enormous volumes of Asian history from the library. 

He read of samurai and silk, and of the love of the cut sleeve. 

And the months rolled by.

 ****

 *****

 

Tezuka came back on an utterly ordinary Sunday without telling anybody about it.

Fuji knew because Tezuka knocked on his door Monday and asked, "Do you have time for a set?"

Later, sweaty and tired, propped up against the fence of the street tennis court, Fuji asked, "Will you play?"  He meant forever.

The sky was red and orange and dipping into bronze.  Strokes of light fell against Tezuka's bangs, still as unruly as before, chocolate and gold, Fuji thought: unbearably sweet and rare. 

Tezuka was thoughtful.  "I already grew into the jacket."

Fuji nodded and said, "I see," when he didn't at all.

Later, in Fuji's doorway, with wood and siding digging into his shoulder and Tezuka's mouth on his own, Fuji would think that it'd all become that much more complicated. 

Fuji had been right about Tezuka, sweet and rare, and so he held on to muscled arms and kissed him back, as well as he could manage and fighting back irrational terror.  Fuji was never scared, but he'd never been kissed, either and he was bad at both.

When Tezuka pulled away for air Fuji decided he was drowning in oxygen, that he'd been dying from lack of Tezuka all those months.

But Tezuka was gorgeous framed in twilight and the dim yellow of the street lights, and everything else seemed so far away.

Tezuka said, "I thought about you."

Fuji smiled and said, "I know."

 ****

 *****

 

Nothing worked out quite like expected, Fuji realized.  He couldn't plan for everything, not for Yuuta, not for Tezuka, least of all for himself.

Most unexpected of all, Tezuka decided to let Momoshiro and Kaidoh choose who would be captain between themselves.  The new first years and the old gathered around to see the bloodshed as Tezuka walked away from the courts for the last time.

Tezuka wasn't one for nostalgia, and Fuji walked beside him.  The tennis rackets were barely noticeable weights against their shoulders, and Fuji found his eyes wandering to Tezuka's arm over and again.

But Fuji kept reading his history books and Tezuka still waited for him to tie his shoes.

And when Fuji stood next to Tezuka, he still smelled nothing but oxygen.

 ****

 *****

 

Years later, when Fuji asked Tezuka, "Will you play?" he didn't mean tennis at all.

And when Tezuka brushed the hair from Fuji's face and said, "Forever," he didn't mean tennis, either.


End file.
